VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN. 115 



Seventeen of these islands are habitable. They 

 are rugged, mountainous, and rocky ; the interven- 

 ing currents deep and rapid ; the sea around them 

 turbulent, and at times so much agitated by whirl- 

 winds, that vast quantities of water are forced 

 up into the air, and the fishes contained therein 

 frequently deposited on the tops of the highest 

 mountains. These are equally resistless on land, 

 tearing up trees, stones, and animals, and carry- 

 ing them to very distant places. Whirlpools, too, 

 are numerous in these seaSj and extremely dan- 

 gerous ; that near the island of Suderoe is the 

 most noted. It is occasioned by a crater, sixty- 

 one fathoms deep in the centre, and from fifty to 

 fifty-five on the sides. The water forms four fierce 

 circumgyrations. The point they begin at is on the 

 side of a large bason, where commences a range of 

 rocks running spirally, and terminating at the 

 verge of the crater. This range is extremely rug- 

 ged, and covered with water from the depth of 

 twelve to eight fathoms only. It forms four equi- 

 distant wreaths, with a channel from thirty-five 

 to twenty fathoms in depth between each. On 

 the outside, beyond that depth, the sea suddenly 

 sinks to eighty and ninety. On the south border 

 of the bason, is a lofty rock, called Sumboe Muni; 

 noted for the number of birds which frequent it, 



